Ratatouille

So Carson had been begging me to make ratatouille ever since we saw the movie in July. Until last Thursday, I had been able to stave him off. You see, I'm not the greatest chef in the world. I can follow a recipe and can hold my own enough to feed my family. I haven't ever ventured out of my little comfort zone (ward cookbook) and really tried new things (before seeing the movie I had never heard of ratatouille, I figured it was the rat's name). Trevor came up with this idea of trying one new recipe a week to try to broaden my 10 standard dinner meals. I have to admit, it was a good one and we've been more successful than not in this little experiment. I was feeling rather skeptical, however, as I started to research ratatouille. It's all vegetables. My family hates vegetables. I was going to go to all this work and no one was going to eat it. I'm a sucker of a mother though, and I bent to Carson's wishes. I'm so glad I did! They ate it. All of it. Even Trevor who hates peppers and eggplant. He admitted it wasn't his favorite dish of all time (like anything could compete with steak) but said he would absolutely eat it again. The boys thought it was so cool to eat the same thing that "Remy" made. I was feeling a bit big headed in my success, even if it wasn't that hard of a dish to make. It was just so pretty! Care to try?

Ratatouille

1/2 onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced

1 cup tomato puree

2 Tablespoons olive oil, divided

1 small eggplant (try to find an "Italian eggplant", they are less than half the size of regular ones)

1 smallish zucchini

1 smallish yellow squash

1 longish red bell pepper

Few sprigs fresh thyme

Salt and Pepper

Preheat oven to 375

Pour tomato puree into bottom of an oval baking dish, approximately 10 inches across the long way. Drop the sliced garlic and onion into the sauce, stir in one tablespoon of the olive oil and season the sauce generously with salt and pepper.

Trim the ends of the eggplant, zucchini and yellow squash. As carefully as you can, trim the ends off the red pepper and remove the core, leaving the edges intact, like a tube.

On a mandoline (I found mine at Wal*Mart for 10 bucks-but there are nicer ones at Costco and Bed, Bath, and Beyond), adjustable blade slicer, or with a very sharp knife, cut the eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash and red pepper into very thin slices, approximately 1/16 inch thick.

Atop the tomato sauce, arrange slices of prepared veggies concentrically from the outer edge to the inside of the baking dish, overlapping so just a smidgen of each flat surface is visible, alternating veggies. You may have a handful leftover that do not fit.

Drizzle the remaining tablespoon of olive oil over the vegetables and season them generously with salt and pepper. Remove the leaves from the thyme springs with your fingertips, running them down the stem. Sprinkle the fresh thyme over the dish.

Cover dish with a piece of parchment paper or foil cut to fit inside oval dish. (Tricky, yes, but the hardest thing about this recipe).

Bake for 45-55 minutes, until veggies have released their liquid and are clearly cooked, but with some structure left sot hey are not totally limp. They should not be brown at the edges, and you should see that the tomato sauce is bubbling up around them.

Serve with a dab of soft goat cheese or good old sour cream on top, alone, or with some crusty french bread. We had ours over rice.